LAUSD STUDIES TEST SCORES; STANFORD 9 RESULTS WILL BE USED TO TRACK STUDENTS AND SCHOOLS.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

Los Angeles Unified officials will use the district's Stanford 9 test scores to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum and - for the first time - determine how individual students fare from one year to the next.

But the district does not have a system in place to make teachers accountable for scores, district spokesman Brad Sales said.

``We don't have the technology to do that now or do it fairly, but we will have some technology to be able to track individual students as they move through school,'' Sales said. ``You'll be able to see a class rise or fall depending on instruction.''

The district has released Stanford 9 test scores for fourth-, eighth- and 10th-graders in reading, math and language. Stanford 9 results for all grades tested in all subjects were released Tuesday by the state Department of Education following a judge's order.

Scores from the Aprenda test, the Spanish version of the Stanford 9 test, will be released by the end of next week, Sales said.

Districts are not required to make academic decisions based on the scores or to place them in students' files. In the LAUSD, the scores will be used in a number of ways.

San Fernando Valley educators plan to tear apart the results, tracking individual students, schools and even clusters. Larry Moore, leader of the Chatsworth-Granada Hills cluster, said he will use the scores to provide staff development to teachers.

``We'll meet with English department teachers and teachers from other areas'' and examine ways to incorporate the test's six subject areas - reading, math, language, spelling, science and social science - into everyday teaching, Moore said.

And because LAUSD students took the exam two years ago, teachers now have a base line for comparison.

``This year, (teachers) will have individual printouts of every student in the class,'' said Joe Luskin, leader of the Canoga Park-El Camino-Taft cluster. ``If a youngster goes from first grade to second grade, they will see how well that youngster did on material for first grade and for second grade and will be able to review strengths and weaknesses.''

School board member Julie Korenstein said individual results will provide the most useful information for the district, which aims to boost overall reading and math scores by eight percentiles during the next four years.

``The most valuable information I can have is a child's scores from last year to this year,'' Korenstein said. ``My greatest desire is to use test scores to come up with appropriate plans for student achievement.''

During the past year, Superintendent Ruben Zacarias has taken several steps to improve student achievement. One of them included targeting the district's 100 lowest-performing schools and providing them with extra funds to receive teacher training from commercial tutoring firms and start after-school and Saturday remedial programs.

In the Valley, six schools were placed on the list.

But because students took the exam before the programs were in place, results of the intervention efforts won't be seen until next year, Sales said.

Zacarias is considering expanding the list of 100 schools or creating a new list.

``He'll use the test data to look at the 100 schools and make a determination as to precisely what status those schools will have next year,'' Sales said.

In the Valley, Luskin's cluster already has begun a pilot six-week summer reading program for elementary students who need extra help. Under the program, five elementaries have identified about 115 students with reading problems.

To qualify, students must be in third grade or below, and parents must work with the children at home. Luskin said the program intentionally targets the youngest students.

``You wait too long, and by third grade, youngsters are in serious trouble,'' he said. ``We're hoping to catch these kids much earlier.''

Korenstein said she also wants to examine the curricula of top-performing schools such as Emelita Street School in Encino, which was the highest-scoring nonmagnet elementary in the Birmingham-Cleveland-Reseda cluster.

``I want to know what math program do they have? What science program do they have?'' she said. ``That's the value for me as an educator, as a board member or teacher. Then the test scores really mean something.''